Religion and the #StateofWomen by Gina Messina

The White House Summit on Women was held this week on Tuesday, June 14, 2016 and it was a great privilege to be among those invited to participate in this inaugural event. There was an incredible line up of speakers and so much was shared. It proved to be an overwhelming day – in a very good way. Topics addressed included violence against women, economic empowerment, and education. In addition to the main event, there were breakout sessions on a myriad of topics presented by the most preeminent authorities in their fields. I walked away from the day with a sense of urgency to find news ways to engage gender issues and social policy. However, I also wondered how to bring religion into the dialogue and give greater attention to its impact on women’s issues in the US.

With one of the most critical elections in the nation’s history ahead and gender social policy being a primary focus, it is more important than ever that we have a serious conversation on the ways that religion is impacting both the candidates’ positions and voting outcomes. Although we are a secular nation, time and again we hear candidates proclaim God as their guiding force in efforts to ban abortion, birth control, marriage equality, gender neutral bathrooms, and so on. Interestingly, in the same breath, religion is used to justify capital punishment, the denial of climate change, and the refusal to enact responsible gun control. Likewise, as voters plaster Facebook with political rants, religion is often cited as a main factor in their positions.

Christian ideology is foundational in our political system and women and men, regardless of religious affiliation, culture, race, economic status, sexuality, etc., are subjected to policies that do not represent their beliefs. Women and the LGBTQI community are particularly at risk and their human rights are continually denied.

Many have embraced the idea of complementarity between dominant males and submissive females supposedly dictated by Christianity and have used it to enforce norms and fuel social policy efforts. Anyone who does not fit that paradigm is viewed as “sinful” and marked with a metaphorical scarlet letter. This refuses “everyone else” the ability to live as free human beings, and it perpetuates a devastating hatred without rationale. The mass shooting in Orlando and tragic loss of innocent life is evidence of this.

As long as this view of religion influences our social policies, violence against women, reproductive justice, marriage equality, pay equality, poverty, parental leave, education, and so on, will continue to be subjected to the ideologies of a few — which often prove to be oppressive and problematic interpretations of tradition. And thus, until we address the role that religion plays in politics and its interconnection with gender, we will continue to live in a society that (among other things) values property over body and fears gender neutral bathrooms rather than assault rifles.

10 replies

I could not agree more. I am tired of seeing important policy conversations derailed by discomfort with seriously engagement or critique of the role of religion in those conversations and, if anything, I am even more tired or seeing important theological conversations derailed by political machination. A very vocal segment of America’s Christian population has now so dominated the discourse on key issues that many people now uncritically accept the idea that Christianity is synonymous with homophobia and misogyny, and all other religions are simply assumed to share the same views. (People’s heads tend to explode when I tell them things like, “Muslim scholars have traditionally supported abortion rights because of their dependence on Aristotelian medicine,” or “The Roman Catholic Church did also for the first 1500 years of its existence, and only began to consider it a major issue in the last 150.”) As a person of faith who considers the struggle against both homophobia and sexism a matter of religious obligation, I long for the full and open conversation that will enable us not only to secure the rights of women and LGBT people, but also to rescue the reputation of the faiths that support them.

As we read “Christian ideology is foundational in our political system,” it’s important to remember that most of the Founding Fathers were not Christians but Deists. And we know that those men wrote amendments to the Constitution, beginning (of course) with “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof….”

How do we communicate with the folks who keep calling the U.S. a “Christian nation” and trying to disenfranchise us? I’m not sure it’s possible. Alas. Gina, I think you’re right that until we address the huge role that religion plays in our government, people are just outta luck.

Thanks Gina, greatly enjoyed this post, the video and the montage aligned in slants. There’s a fine website on the project with pics of these and many other famous women involved, along with their names and achievements, see:
theunitedstateofwomen.org/film/

Reblogged this on CATHOLIC, Non-Roman Western Style and commented:
We MUST ask ourselves WHO IS THIS GOD WE PROCLAIM?
Does that God hate homosexuals? Does that God demand submission and sacrifice from its faithful ones?